The “Protocol 20” upgrade, which adds support for Ethereum-style smart contracts to the decade-old payments-focused blockchain, had been delayed by three weeks due to precautions after a bug was found.
Protocol Village: QuickNode Adds Support for ZkSync Hyperchains
The latest in blockchain tech upgrades, funding announcements and deals. For the period of Feb. 15-21.
The Protocol: Bitcoin’s OP_CAT, Fake Ethereum Tokens, Starknet’s Airdrop
CoinDesk’s Jamie Crawley takes a look at the suddenly-high-profile proposal to revive Bitcoin’s historic “OP_CAT” function as a way of enabling more development on the oldest blockchain. PLUS: the unofficial “ERC-404” tokens driving up fees on Ethereum and highlights from our Protocol Village column over the past week.
Protocol Village: Order-Routing Protocol Flood Raises $5.2M Led by Bain Capital Crypto, Archetype
The latest in blockchain tech upgrades, funding announcements and deals. For the period of Feb. 8-14.
The Protocol: Solana’s Missed Moment, Exclusive Farcaster Q&A, Bullish Year of Dragon
Even in a slow week ahead of the Chinese New Year, there’s a lot of crypto news to cover. Here’s this week’s The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly newsletter devoted to blockchain tech.
Taproot Wizards’ New Bitcoin NFTs Already Trading at Twice the Initial Sale Price
With almost two hours left for whitelisted buyers to claim the digital-art collectibles, at least 2,560 of the series of 3,000 had been claimed, at a fixed price of 0.1 BTC ($4,274 each).
Protocol Village: Prediction Market Zeitgeist Launches DLMSR-Based AMM
The latest in blockchain tech upgrades, funding announcements and deals. For the period of Feb. 1-7.
The Protocol: Bitcoin NFT Debacle, Vitalik’s 30th, Farcaster Frames, ‘Private Mempools’
In this week’s issue of The Protocol newsletter, our Sam Kessler writes about the “private mempools” that Ethereum users are increasingly relying on to avoid front-running MEV bots. PLUS: Margaux Nijkerk explores the growing use of “councils” to oversee adolescent networks.
Stellar’s Foundation Supports Delay of Smart-Contracts Upgrade After Bug Found
A bug identified on Jan. 25 was deemed to pose “little risk,” but after receiving “robust feedback” from the blockchain’s developer community, the Stellar Development Foundation opted to “disarm” its validators ahead of the Jan. 30 target date for the Protocol 20 upgrade.
Stellar’s Foundation Supports Delay of Smart-Contracts Upgrade After Bug Found
A bug identified on Jan. 25 was deemed to pose “little risk,” but after receiving “robust feedback” from the blockchain’s developer community, the Stellar Development Foundation opted to “disarm” its validators ahead of the Jan. 30 target date for the Protocol 20 upgrade.
Celo, Shopping for Blockchain Partner, Turns to the Delicate Issue of Money
A standalone blockchain, Celo is looking to migrate to become a layer-2 network atop Ethereum. The months-long selection process has started to look like “The Bachelorette,” with teams behind the Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon and zkSync networks all vying to win the technology mandate.
Protocol Village: Space and Time Rolls Out Open-Source GPU Acceleration Framework ‘Blitzar’
The latest in blockchain tech upgrades, funding announcements and deals. For the period of Jan. 25-31.
The Protocol: Ethereum Developers Warn on ‘Diversity Problem’
In this week’s issue, a focus on Ethereum’s “diversity problem,” the week’s biggest blockchain project upgrades and highlights from Electric Capital’s annual report on developer activity. PLUS: We’ve got an exclusive interview with a top architect behind the XRP Ledger.
Bitcoin-Based Digital Art Image ‘Genesis Cat’ Sells for $254K in Sotheby’s Auction
The sale of the digital image from the Taproot Wizards project came as popularity surges for the NFT-like creations minted atop the Bitcoin blockchain’s Ordinals protocol. All in, some 19 lots sold by Sotheby’s raked in a combined $1.1 million.
Protocol Village: Matter Labs, iCandy Plan New ‘Hyperchain’
The latest in blockchain tech upgrades, funding announcements and deals. For the period of Jan. 18-24.
The Protocol: MetaMask’s Secret Weapon and Ethereum’s Dencun Debacle
In this issue of CoinDesk’s weekly newsletter on blockchain technology, we bring you Sam Kessler’s scoop on MetaMask’s in-development “intents” feature that could revolutionize how users interact with blockchains. Also: a post-mortem on Ethereum’s unexpectedly ugly Dencun testnet upgrade – and a glimpse of one of the new data blobs.
Taproot Wizards, Bitcoin Ordinals Project That Raised $7.5M, to Sell ‘Quantum Cats’ Collection
The “NFTs on Bitcoin” project has capitalized on the popularity of the controversial Ordinals protocol, which has generated a flurry of interest in the original blockchain but added to congestion and higher fees.
Steward of Bitcoin Software Explains Why She Nixed an Acrimonious Code Debate
“All it was doing was generating noise,” the Bitcoin Core maintainer Ava Chow says of Luke Dashjr’s pull request, which would have severely curtailed the use of Ordinals.
Protocol Village: Mobile Gaming Studio AOFverse Gets Grant from Arbitrum Foundation
The latest in blockchain tech upgrades, funding announcements and deals. For the period of Jan. 11-17.
The Protocol: Beneath Bitcoin ETF Chaos, A Blockchain Drama
In this week’s issue, we dive into the proposal that would have curtailed Ordinals inscriptions “NFTs on Bitcoin” traffic – were it not abruptly ended over the past week by a maintainer for the popular Bitcoin Core software.